It’s not just your Xbox One that’s missing the Entertainment tab. Beginning this week, you can expect to see a lot less of the Xbox One’s dedicated entertainment area. In fact, don’t plan on seeing it again at all.
Microsoft rolled out software and Xbox Live updates that removed the Entertainment tab from every Xbox One connected to its gaming service this week. A replacement for the OneGuide area, the Entertainment tab had links to new TV shows, movie releases and had dedicated buttons for watching broadcast TV in the OneGuide and enjoying your Movies & TV video collection. The death of the Entertainment area didn’t come suddenly. Microsoft revealed it was killing the area over a month ago. It’s also not like there hadn’t been hints things were going this way. The screenshot above shows Channels, which let app developers add their services to the OneGuide directly. Microsoft killed that before Scalebound was even a thing.
Now you’ll need to pin your favorite video apps to your home screen. That won’t get you details on what’s new in Netflix and Hulu without opening them, but that will let you get to your favorite shows quicker than diving into the My Games and Apps area. For its part, Microsoft seems to have known that easy access to these apps was needed; you can create Groups of pins to drop all your favorite video apps on your Home screen and the Xbox Guide without trudging through the sea of icons that is the My Games and Apps area. That’s what I’ve done on my own console.
Other than entertainment lovers, there’s one group of people the Entertainment area’s demise will disappoint. A small number of Xbox One owners have complained for years about there being too many tabs on the Xbox One’s home screen that they don’t use. Microsoft killed the Entertainment area so that it could replace it with a dedicated area for Xbox Game Pass. This new area shows up on your Xbox One whether you are a subscriber or not.
So, I’m not happy about this change as I used the Entertainment tab all the time. That being said, all things deserve context. I expect the overwhelming majority of folks to not realize it’s gone.
